Conveying devices, such as those which are used for moving objects between different stations in a factory, usually comprise a conveying track comprising a belt or a chain. A conveyor track consists of an endless conveyor chain that is supported by conveyor beams. The conveyor chain glides on sliding surfaces on the conveyor beams in order to reduce the friction and the wear. This surface may be the conveyor beam itself or may be an additional component, such as a slide rail. The conveyor track may comprise curves and bends and at the end regions of a conveyor track, there is either a drive unit which drives the chain or an idler end unit which supports the chain for the return path.
There are a number of different designs for such conveyors available. Products may either be conveyed directly on the conveyor belt or chain, or may be conveyed on product carriers. A conveyor chain is made up of a large number of individual chain parts, designed to be able to support the conveyed products. A conveyor system is adapted to different types of products. For some products, such as medical equipments or in lab automation, the environment is clean and dust free, whereas for other products, the environment may be dusty, wet and/or messy. In these cases, it is important that it is relatively easy to clean the conveyor in order to reduce wear of the conveyor and to ensure a reliable operation.
One such industry is the food industry, where various requirements regarding cleanliness are imposed on the handling of goods, mainly to ensure good sanitary conditions in the manufacturing or packaging process. This is necessary to ensure that the food products are not contaminated. Depending on the type of food products, more or less hygienic demands are imposed. In order to meet these requirements, a number of measures are often taken. These include different cleaning schemes, with e.g. washing parts of the conveyor at regular intervals, with a more thorough washing at less frequent intervals. These may include partly disassembling the conveyor system at regular intervals, and removing the chain to allow cleaning the conveyor system and chain.
There are further often requirements on the conveyor system regarding safety. The moving mechanical parts of the system should be enclosed in order to prevent operators from coming into contact with the moving parts of the system. One way of obtaining such a secure conveyor system is to use protective covers arranged close to the moving parts, such that objects such as fingers cannot pass trough. However, such an enclosed conveyor system is more difficult to clean.
Different approaches for the cleaning of hygienic conveyor systems are known. In most systems, the conveyor chain can be raised to a position above the conveyor track, in order to gain access to the interior of the conveyor. The conveyor chain may also be removed to allow both the chain and the conveyor to be cleaned. It is further known to remove other parts of the conveyor, such as covers, guide rails, etc in order to be able to clean all parts of the conveyor.
In most conveyor systems, the conveyor chain is conveyed in return grooves or on slide rails at the lower side of the conveyor. Such a solution is difficult to clean and is thus not an option for e.g. the food industry. A further drawback with this solution is that the conveyor chain is often longer than the conveyor track, in order to allow the conveyor chain to be raised for intermediate cleaning. The return path must thus be able to handle a conveyor chain with an excessive length. The return path is thus normally provided with different types of chain supports between which the conveyor chain hangs down somewhat. The chain supports may be rollers or glide supports. They are normally mounted on transverse axles and fastened with clips or the like. For a thorough cleaning, the supports and the axles are disassembled and removed.
This requires partial disassembly of the conveyor system, which takes a lot of time, effort and manpower. Another problem with the removal of parts is that the parts must be kept somewhere during the cleaning, which also increase the risk of contamination of the removed parts. There is also a risk that fasteners or other parts are lost and not replaced, which may lead to malfunction of the conveyor system.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an improved conveyor system structure remedying the deficiencies noted above.